Warring Societies of Pre-Colonial Southeast Asia_ Local Cultures of Conflict Within a Regional Context

Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asia

of the new geography, Siamese rulers did not perceive the Mekong River
as a boundary to their claims over people and resources across the River.
The survival and prosperity of the Chao Phraya River-based kingdom
thus relied extensively on the livelihood of those along the Mekong
Basin.
Records on warfare in Southeast Asia are often full of details of
devastation, troop mobilization, depopulation and forced resettlements
but rarely state the objective of the rulers. While royal chronicles often
portray the rulers’ major ambitions of achieving a status of the king of
kings, or a universal monarch, an ideal position of the Buddhist mon-
arch. This chapter, however, has shown that warfare was not simply a
matter of power exercise by rulers in Southeast Asia. Warfare is part and
parcel of state building in economic, political and military aspects.

Author’s Note

An earlier version of this chapter was published as a working paper at the
City University of Hong Kong.